The Adept's Apprentice

Three hundred pages into The Adept, only twenty pages shy of the end, I'm thinking that it's time for a post.

Our two main characters are Sir Adam Sinclair, a seasoned Initiate, and Peregrine Lovat, a young artist who has only recently discovered his powers (for lack of better word).

They, and many others, are Initiates, and have, over the course of their many incarnations, been introduced to magic in some way. So far, we have seen that Sinclair was once an egyptian pharaoh (a life he apparently remembers well) and a Knight Templar (who was burned at the stake). Peregrine originally received his powers at Delphi during the time of Pericles. In this incarnation, his powers are usually used to create detailed sketches (his being an artist, after all) of past events.

The book opens as a thief breaks into a museum and, ignoring everything else of value, steals the Hepburn Sword, which once belonged to Sir Francis Hepburn; the Wizard Earl. Exiting the museum, he hands the sword to his employer who, after handing him a large sum of money, shoots him three times.

Sinclair, as Master of the Hunt, is charged by the Divine Light to stop an evil of unknown (to the characters) origin. Peregrine, as his student, will also help.

The next crime the cult commits is the desecration of the grave and body of Michael Scot, an adept of the medieval ages. Using the sword, which has been charged with energy after being around a powerful necromancer for many years, several members draw his soul to him and force it back into the body.

Sinclair and Peregrine arrive the next day, along with another Initiate, Inspector McLeod. Upon examining the body, they discover the the soul has not been allowed to exit, causing it immense pain (due to being in a centuries-old body) and putting its current incarnation, a young girl named Gillian Talbot, at risk of death. Without much time to spare, Michael Scot looks into Peregrine's eyes, setting him sketching (it sounds... less cheesey in the book). After he has sketched out several pictures of a castle and a cave beneath it (a rune is engraved near the cave; it is protected by the faeries), the location of the treasure the cult is after, Sinclair releases the spirit (though the girl has now been in a coma for over 12 hours, and the soul's personalities [various incarntaions] are largely destroyed; it will take many days of work by Sinclair to return him/her/it to a normal state).

The three now know what their enemies are after; the spell-book and faerie gold of Michael Scot.

Peregrine is able to narrow the possible locations down to four: Foulis, Strome, Eilean Donan, and Urquhart.

A third theft occurs; this time by two theives, a man in a black ski mask and a young woman. The faerie flag of the MacLeods, alleged to have the power to summon terrible faeries to turn the tide of a battle if it is unfurled by a Chief of the clan, is stolen from Dunvegan Castle. The girl drives it to shore (the castle being on an island) and hands it off to a man in a boat. Again, she is promptly shot three times.

Sinclair, Peregrine, and McLeod (who has been called in by his clan's chief) go to the castle. There, Sinclair confronts a banshee, the faerie spirit of the flag. Nearly killed in the process due to the faeries' hate of most humans, he is able to convince it to show the location of the spell-book and gold: Urquhart.

Meanwhile, a storm whips up. Horrible winds, strong enough to tear roofs off and unpredicted by the weathermen, begin. Only just able to take a ferry to the mainland, and even then forced to jump the car a yard from boat to dock, they make their way to the castle. Despite the darkness, Sinclair is able to guide them by praying to the Divine Light for better sight; they must get to the castle as swiftly as possible, for the cult will attempt to take the treasure, using the faerie-magic charged flag as a shield (still in its case; another legend is that any one not of the MacLeod clan who touches the flag will be destroyed), at moonrise. Being Hallowe'en night, both sides' magic will be at its strongest.

They get out of the car a mile away from the castle when they are forced to swerve off of the road to avoid what Sinclair describes as a deer (though he only saw antlers, and believes it to be... something else [assumably a faerie]).

I was tempted to skip this post, really. The above summary isn't a very good one; I've omitted entire supporting characters and most of Peregrine's actions. I just can't fit them in there in a resonable amount of space. However, this is only the first in a quadrology, plus, I don't know how far I'll get into the next one before Monday.

The place-names are entirely a mystery to me (even Urquhart castle actually exists; it's where the majority of Nessie sightings occur); it's set in the Scotland. Two changes in the language are most noticable to me (other than the Scottish accents). Flashlights are called "torches" and tractor trailers are called "articulated lorries." I've heard of these changes before, but the articulated lorry bit still seems a bit funny to me (though I'm not really sure why).

It is a good book, and I do plan on reading at least one more of the series; I may not finish it, however. Sometime this month, the Cambria County library will hopefully get Tad Williams's new book, which will take me a good while to read (most of his books being over 800 pages).

That presents a problem in itself; it will finish up a [rather lengthy] quadrology. Plus, Tad Williams doesn't write series in the same way Katherine Kurtz and Deborah Turner Harris (authors of The Adept) do. His form a single story, with no real conclusion at the end of the book. This may not matter if the library doesn't get the book in before the end of the semester, but it is likely best to have some sort of game plan; I've added a poll on the side of the blog (or I will, at least).

This may be a bit premature, but, quite frankly, I'm bored.

Ooh, was a bit scared that this entire post had been deleted when I got a posting error; good thing they save as drafts automatically.